


Deluge

by Nabielka



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Developing Relationship, Genetic Engineering, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-03 17:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19468336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: Doctor Bashir might not be quite what Garak had thought him, but perhaps they can make do.





	Deluge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



“You really don’t mind?” Bashir’s eyes were fixed upon him intently. They were still lovely, still luminous; they had been one of the first things to catch Garak’s interest, before he had had the chance to learn the mind behind them. That was still true, however they had come to be that way. 

The truth, which he did not care to admit clearly even to himself, was he was appalled. Not by the enhancements, not by Bashir’s concealment, but by his own shock in the face of it all. He had snarled at him once, rebuked him for his Federation smugness, his Federation self-assurance: did he think he knew Garak? Humbling for him too, with all he had been, to realise that he himself had fallen prey to the same delusion. He had pressed Bashir against his sheets; he had found lunch by lunch that the man had wormed his way further into his sentiments, and he had thought he had the measure of him, more or less: that Bashir was bright but inclined to naïveté, stubborn and surprisingly kind, unskilled at subterfuge, in Federation parlance ‘an open book’. It was galling to realise he himself had had no inkling that there were serious secrets to Bashir at all. 

Had Bashir said, _“You really don’t blame me?”_ , Garak could have answered him with the sort of honesty he prized. What was it to him if Bashir smiled, smiled, and was a liar? As it was, the answer took more care. It did not require Order training to see the tension in the line of Bashir’s shoulders, nor to know that the sort of carelessness with the truth Bashir had once sought risked losing him entirely.

For it was clear that that was at stake. The question behind Bashir’s words was more _Do you still want me?_ , and that, at least, was easy to answer.

He kept his tone light. “Not at all; who am I to begrudge you your secrets? You should know, my dear, such medical procedures aren’t outlawed on Cardassia. As it is,” he said, noting the slight loosening in the way Bashir held himself, “you will surely agree that this is yet another example of the Federation falling short of its ideals?”

“I suppose if you haven’t heard of Kirk, you’re not familiar with Khan either? The Federation – Starfleet – they have a right to fear.” A pursing of his mouth. 

“I do believe the Federation allows for genetic engineering, Doctor? You yourself have talked at length about the use of medical planning for some interspecies offspring. You’re not suggesting you consider the replimat a place suited for clandestine conversation?”

“I can’t believe you’re trying to discuss medical ethics!” Good, a light raising of the voice. Bashir did have that tendency to get strident in arguments, enticing more often than not. “The point is, whatever you think of the Federation’s laws on the matter, everything you like about me is the responsibility of my parents! You like my brain? You want the accomplished doctor by your side? The memory you said was almost Cardassian at times? You can thank my father! He and my mother judged me a failure when I was six and they corrected with everything that drew you to me!” 

Had Garak been judged inadequate as a child, Tain would have thought little before getting rid of him. But no, better not to go down that route: Bashir was not a man to be soothed by having his relative fortunes weighed with another’s. He might be swayed down the digression for one conversation; he did show a marked inclination to judge Tain unduly harshly – Federation ideals, again, but Garak had determined a long time ago that it made for little impediment to the enjoyment of Bashir’s company – but it would eat away at him. 

“You’re the doctor,” Garak said, as lightly and agreeably as he could make it, and saw Bashir flinch. “I hadn’t been given to thinking of dedication and kindness as traits one could adjust genetically, but perhaps I should have been a gardener at the Romulan Medical Institute rather than our Embassy.” He himself was Tain’s creature, moulded to the Order. If everything Bashir had shown him had been a lie, it was still a pleasant one, worthy of further pursuit. It had been the delight of many such nights in his quarters to deepen his knowledge of him. Even now he could not quite credit that it should all have been an illusion: he did not think Bashir capable of sustaining so complete a pretense; he himself had drawn upon his own characteristics on assignment. 

At the very least, he thought, he was not going to grow bored. Not that he had imagined himself in danger of doing so. 

Bashir blinked at him. “You don’t have questions? The others – it’s not like you knew either.” A slight frown. 

Garak could well imagine Chief O’Brien’s reaction: some typical Federation tripe about how it was going to take him time to adjust, but he still wanted to remain friends. He didn’t much like the man, and knew the feeling mutual, but there was no denying O’Brien cared for Bashir. With a certain resignation he acknowledged to himself the advancing likelihood of more interaction.

“Certainly,” said Garak, “Will you stay?”

“Of course, I’d rather go through it – oh!” He smiled for the first time that evening. If it was not up to his usual efforts, it still had the effect of lightening Garak’s heart. “I’m not on the first morning shift; the Captain thought it best.” 

Garak’s own opening hours began a little after the infirmary’s morning shift. He took a step towards his bed chamber. “If you’d allow me a few minutes...” He had not yet had occasion to clean his teeth, let alone perform any of the ablutions he still felt conscious about around Bashir, though it was not the sort of night leading to anything. 

Bashir didn’t protest. All Garak had wanted was some assurance that he would not come out to find the doctor gone. He found him on the bed instead, seated, his uniform unzipped but not removed. At Garak’s look, deliberately inquisitive, up and down his body, he scrambled up, and stepped out of it altogether. He kept his eyes fixed on Garak all the while, as though expecting to be stopped and ejected at any moment, and left it unfolded on the floor. 

Garak restrained himself to a slight glance of not quite concealed distaste. At least the dreadful thing didn’t wrinkle. Of greater importance was the doctor, who had put himself back where Garak wanted him. 

“Computer, lights,” he said, joining Bashir on the bed. He pressed his lips to Bashir’s hairline, curled an arm around him, and pulled them down so that they lay instead of sitting.

By his own habit, he would have lain down himself and waited for Bashir to match him. But he was learning too, in snatches of what Bashir let him see, which he knew now was less than he had believed, that Bashir liked that sort of physical demonstrativeness, the casual intimacy of it. 

Garak liked to talk to him like that, liked hearing in return the soft murmur of his voice in the darkness, the warmth of his body. Human body temperature was a few degrees above Cardassian, and yet on this night, it was Bashir who scooted closer with a soft sound. 

His thumb traced a lazy line back and forth across Bashir’s skin. “Whatever you want to tell me, I will listen.” 

He prepared himself for a series of intejections where really, the dear doctor could not be allowed to go on as he was. But the Bashir in his arms in the darkness seemed at least more like the Bashir he had shared his bed with before, though the talk was both more medical and more personal than usual, and less like the Bashir he had first encountered in his rooms that night, with half of the effects of his that had ended up in Garak's quarters already in his arms. 

That in itself was of some comfort.


End file.
